A gateway back home
A gateway back home
Hertha fans are everywhere: Matthias Lamparter is a Herthaner living in Tokyo, Japan. The 37-year-old watches all of the Old Lady’s Bundesliga matches from 9,000 kilometres away, despite the time difference.
Berlin – Love brought Matthias Lamparter to Tokyo in 2012. After finishing school, Lamparter chose to take a gap year in Sydney, Australia, where he met and fell in love with his now wife. However, Lamparter grew up in Charlottenburg, within distance of the Olympiastadion. Football wasn’t a particularly big part of his life, but as a teenager he would regularly attend Hertha matches with his friends. Lamparter was in the stands for iconic matches such as the 2-0 win against Kaiserslautern in the Blue-Whites' promotion winning season in 1996/97, as well as on that foggy night in 1999 as Hertha faced Barcelona. “It was a carefree time,” he said as he reminisced on the past in an interview with herthabsc.de.
An elementary school teacher in a Haraguchi jersey
Given the seven-hour time difference between Tokyo and Berlin, watching a match takes place at strange times for Lamparter. A Saturday afternoon kick-off in the Bundesliga begins at 22:30 in Tokyo, with evening games starting at 3:30 in the morning. Lamparter watched the final minutes of the dramatic DFB-Pokal shootout victory against Dynamo Dresden on his phone during his morning commute to work, drawing more than a few stares as he celebrated Hertha’s eventual win. Watching the Blue-Whites play helps Lamparter remain connected to his hometown, and his club helps remind him of the past. “Hertha is a gateway back home,” he said. “Despite feeling welcome in your new home, I do miss the football back home,” he said.
But, following his club from abroad has also helped him make new memories. Especially when Japanese players join the capital city club, such as Genki Haraguchi and Hajime Hosogai. “In my daughter’s elementary school, there was even a teacher wearing a Hertha jersey with Haraguchi on the back,” Lamparter said about the hype both Japanese Herthaner generated in their home country.
Lamparter tries to return to Berlin at least once a year, but because his kids’ school holidays are either in the summer or winter when German football is on pause, his last visit to the Olympiastadion was two years ago. Back then, Hertha won the opening match of the 2017/18 season 2-0 against VfB Stuttgart. Nearly 20 years after watching his side triumph against Kaiserslautern, Lamparter was able to experience another Blue-White victory. He didn’t watch that match with his friends in the stands, like he did in the past, but with his two children at his side in the upper deck. Many things in Matthias Lamparter’s life may have changed, but his love for Hertha BSC remains.